


Left unsaid.

by Mel_Sanfo



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Halloween, Horror, I think., More like suspense, Trick Or Treat Prompts Challenge, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8413336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mel_Sanfo/pseuds/Mel_Sanfo
Summary: Oliver's therapist urges his to tell her a memory from his time on the island as part of his session...





	

**Author's Note:**

> My 'Trick' fic.
> 
> I got Trick #4 which was "I didn’t have time to see what it was! I just got the hell out of there!”
> 
> My first try at suspense!
> 
> Happy Halloween, people!
> 
> As per usual, I don't own Arrow and all mistakes are my own.

Oliver Queen didn’t talk about the island or his time away. Not really. There was just too much pain to revisit his time there unless there was a good reason for rehashing it. The island was nothing more than suffering and mysteries, a physical representation of all that was bad in the world with its very own set of coordinates. It was, truly, better left alone. But sometimes, like ghosts from the past, the memories refused to stay buried.

 

Coming back to Starling he’d known he was in the best shape, physically, to take on his father’s wish. The promise that had been the catalyst for his crusade. Mentally, was a completely different story. He’d pushed it back, as best he could. Refusing the help, lying to himself, burying his head in the sand and pretending that the time he spent far from Starling hadn’t caused havoc in his mind. But it had and once he’d lost Felicity, because of his lies, there was nowhere left to hide.

 

So he’d done some research and made an appointment with a highly discreet therapist.

 

He’d been attending the sessions for weeks when one of the nightmares came to the front of his mind.

 

Oliver knew that he had to discuss, in detail, at least one of the most frightening moments he’d experienced on the island. No holds barred and no lying. But the one that kept swirling around in his mind was, quite possibly, the one that was going to land him in a padded room.

 

There were many horrible memories to choose from; he realized as he sat on the caramel colored couch, going through the rolodex of information in his mind. So many scary moments that he could choose from made him wonder if having that amount was normal at all.

 

“Oliver,” his therapist ventured to say, the little gray haired lady with sharp dark eyes studying him. “I know this is probably the most difficult thing we’ve done in our sessions so far but we can’t skirt around the root of the problem, not if you want to give therapy a real shot.”

 

He didn’t like the fact that she was right. Hell, Oliver would give away half his fortune just to be able to change himself so his worst therapy worthy secret would be having daddy or mommy issues. Even some kind of highly obscure sexual kink would do right now.

 

“This is going to sound crazy…” he began, glancing at the older woman who simply reclined back on her wing back chair and nodded her head once, as if to say ‘continue’.

 

“When I was on the island...I wasn’t prepared to be marooned. I knew nothing about surviving in the wilderness, nothing at all,” He began “In the beginning I wasn’t alone… there was a man there who had been left on the island as a punishment. The whole place was meant to be his prison. He taught me to survive…” 

 

It never got any easier, thinking of all the people he had lost on that island and without wanting to he slipped back in time, to the place that still had it’s talons deep in his soul. 

 

Although Yao Fei had done the best he could Oliver had been, well, he’d been quite the entitled dick back then. It was only natural that they’d butt heads and Yao Fei, in all his wisdom, had known that sometimes tough love was best.

 

So after one of Oliver’s childish temper tantrums where he just stomped out of the cave Yao Fei had let him go and Oliver had been so mad, so frustrated with the whole situation, that he had just walked on and on. Trampling his way through the island like the petulant child that he had been.

 

Once his temper had cooled he was well and truly lost. 

 

“Great.” he had muttered to himself, hooking his hands behind his neck and staring around the dark landscape. 

 

Not only was he lost but nighttime left the woods surrounding him in almost pitch black darkness. Even the moonlight hardly reached the ground through the thick canopy of the trees. He turned in a circle, trying to orient himself, but it was pointless. Lost, hungry and tired he started trudging forward once more, hoping that forward was the right way to get back to the little cave he shared with the only other inhabitant of the island.

 

It was a rustling on the trees only a few minutes later that made him stop and pay attention. The sound had been loud enough he took notice but far enough that he wasn’t really concern. It sounded high up in the trees too which meant it was probably a bird, somewhere, settling to rest. But then the sound came again, the rustling of the leaves a bit more forceful, a bit louder than before. The sound that followed was one that would haunt Oliver for the rest of his life.

 

It wasn’t quite a screech nor a scream, it was like the howling of the wind during a storm and the weeping of a distraught woman combined into an amalgam of despair and agony. It made every single hair on his body stand on end and his heart beat double time. He was no bird expert but he knew damn well he’d never heard a bird do THAT kind of sound.

 

Branches began snapping, several yards behind him and he couldn’t help but look. The canopy was shaking. No more rustling, not swaying with the wind as he had seen it do before. No. Full on shaking, like something was moving through the high up branches at an amazing speed, causing the whole foliage to shake.

 

Before he knew it his feet were moving, propelling him forward in the dark, air sawing in and out of his lungs as he ran as far as his feet could carry him away from whatever was in the trees. That’s when the bird call came again, closer than before, close enough to give him the shock of adrenaline needed to have his depleted body push harder than before. 

 

He didn’t see the fallen tree, too focused on looking back over his shoulder every other second. Instead he stumbled over it and fell to the damp earth, knocking the wind out of his chest. Pushing himself to be laying on his back he pulled deep lung fulls of air, loudly, his eyes darting all over the very top of the trees, looking for-- well, he wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. He heard it then, a clicking sound that reminded him of when he was back home and Laurel had tapped her long nails on top of a surface, impatiently waiting for an answer to her question. It didn’t have the same rhythm but the source was only a few meters behind him, and it made a chill go down his spine.

 

It sounded like talons or really long nails, tapping on the wood of the trees. Getting on his hands and knees he moved towards the tree that had tripped him, he was lucky enough that it had a small ravine under it, enough for him to squeeze his body below the thick trunk, hiding in even deeper darkness than he’d been in before.

 

He tried to keep his breathing quiet, he tried his best, but fear was making him sweat and pant, blood rushing in his ears as he strained to listen for his obvious attacker. The clicking would stop, the rustling of greenery would happen and then a snap or two would creak. It was an insane loop that made his fear spike every single cycle when he noticed the unmistakable fact.

 

Every time the sounds came, they sounded closer. 

 

It seemed he had been waiting under the tree for an eternity, though it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two when he realized, it was quiet. As if the whole forest had gone completely silent. Usually, silence was something that unnerved him, but now it gave him mixed emotions. Did the silence mean whatever was chasing him had given up and gone away? Was it just waiting? 

 

The weight of something heavy landing on top of the tree above him made him bite down on his lip, to the point of pain, in order to keep quiet. Thankfully the tree was propped on the earth in such a way that it served as a barrier between whatever was up there and Oliver.

 

A sort of macabre blanket keeping him from the monster in the dark.

 

That’s when he heard it again, skittering of claws or talons, on the other side of the tree above him, as if the creature was moving around. He placed his hands on the wood, not sure if to hold on to the bark for dear life or to take the opportunity to try and push the heavy log onto whatever was on the other side. 

 

And then the log moved, downwards, the wood groaning under the strain. As if it had been pushed from above, quite purposely. His mind flashed to a documentary he’d seen with Thea once about polar bears and how they’d bounce on the ice when they hunted. 

 

Hunted…

 

He was being hunted! Holy shit!

 

The tree kept moving downwards with every push from above and he countered with his hands as much as he could. Hoping the wood wouldn’t shatter, hoping that whatever it was didn’t just roll off of the log and slip beneath just as he had! He was shouting with the strain before he knew it, refusing to give up and be ‘whatever the hell’s dinner when it happened.

 

It was a whistling, the whistling of an arrow flying through the air, a hint of light catching the corner of his eye before the sound from before, that howling wail pierced the air deafening in its closeness. So loud in fact it made Oliver’s ears ring, making the tree he was pushing rattle.

 

Then it all stopped. The tree was no longer bearing down on him, the piercing shriek had disappeared into nothing and so had his shouts.

 

This time, the silence was a God send.

 

Scurrying from below the log Oliver got to his feet as fast as he could and ran a few meters before his arm was snagged and he was pulled behind a tree, a hand covering his mouth to keep the scream muffled.

 

“This way.”

 

It was Yao Fei’s voice, barely a whisper, but it left no room for argument. The man released him immediately and started leading the way through the dark forest with hasty steps, sure that Oliver would follow.

 

He didn’t say what the thing was, in fact there were no explanations on the older man’s part. All he’d said was.

 

“There are many dangers on this island. I will show you which parts to avoid.”

 

“Oliver?” The therapist's voice brought him back to reality.

 

He was in her tiny office, with all of her knick knacks decorating the bookshelves, along with large tomes. A clock was ticking somewhere behind him, the air conditioning pouring out of the vent just to his right.

 

He wasn’t on the island, he wasn’t locked on the memory anymore, and the realization made him wipe his hands on the fabric covering his thighs, getting rid the sweat that had gathered there.

 

“You were talking about the man on the island?” she tried to redirect his train of thought.

 

He knew then that he couldn’t tell her about the memory that had just engulfed him. There was no way.

 

“I saw him die…” he croaked out, trying to gather his senses. “And it was scary. To be faced with the fact that a man like him, who had helped me survive, could die. Just like that.” he offered. “In a way… it felt like watching my own father die.”

 

And even though he hadn’t told her the one memory, Oliver had done his task. Shared a frightening memory, truthfully… For the most part.


End file.
